The Only Hope for Happiness

August 13, 2015

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a philosophical number poem about the nature of happiness.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

The only hope for happiness
Has neither eyes nor ears.
Instead it sings a melody
Reason rarely hears,
The descant of its gratitude:
Yearning, love, and tears.

For it, all things are equable
In Being's golden light,
Vast as everything that is,
Embracing bloom and blight.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html. For more number poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/numberpoems.html . For more philosophical poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/philosophicalpoems.html .

Adeline

August 6, 2015

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a name poem for Adeline, who likes old-fashioned things.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Adeline likes old-fashioned things:
Dirt roads twisting through hand-tended fields;
Eggs from hens that strut across the yard;
Long wooden tables, faded, pocked, and scarred;
In steel containers, milk that butter yields;
Night unlit, that far-flung glory brings;
Ebullient day, that buzzes, chirps, and sings.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html. For more name poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/namepoems.html .

I'm Sorry that I Doubted You

July 30, 2015

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is an I’m sorry love poem.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

I'm sorry that I doubted you,
For love depends on trust.
The angry tide of jealousy
Retreats because it must.

How stupid it would be to lose
What I most want for fear
Of losing it! That irony
Is now to me quite clear.

So please don't worry that I might
Again be so untrue
To love as to betray the trust
My love has placed in you.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html. For more anniversary poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

Happiness Comes Wholly from Within

July 23, 2015

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem about happiness written to a couple on their fourth anniversary.

Yours,

Nick Gordon
Happiness comes wholly from within,
A gift of wisdom, temperament, and love.
Praised be those who know what is worthwhile,
Pleased to find their pleasures in the heart,
Yearning for a beauty that is theirs.

For them, good feelings aren’t hard to spin.
One can care for life despite one’s cares.
Underneath the feeling is the art,
Returning grace for grace and smile for smile.
They bear their riches on an inner wind,
Holding course for lands that blessed will prove.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html. For more anniversary poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/anniversarypoems.html .

Elegance and Grace and Lustful Pleasure

July 16, 2015

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Eid al-Fitr, the feast at the end of Ramadan, about the beauty of both sensuous and spiritual experience.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Elegance and grace and lustful pleasure;
Intimacy, love, scent, color, longing;
Dreams, jewels, dawns, the sheer delight of dancing;
All the goods of daily life we treasure:
Love them well, but leave them all behind
For just one holy month of ardent prayer,
Intent on being nothing more than there,
The faithful servant in both heart and mind,
Returning then in peace to humankind.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Hear or watch me recite the poem and listen to the music I chose for it at http://www.poemsforfree.com/week.html. For more Ramadan poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/ramadanpoems.html .

Blessed Are Those Who Compromise Their Visions

July 9, 2015

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem for Bastille Day about the virtue of compromise.

Yours,

Nick Gordon

Blessed are those who compromise their visions
And share their power with the other side,
Substituting faith for fratricide,
Trading principles for joint decisions.
Instead of blood, their battles will yield laws,
Less just, perhaps, than those they would have wanted,
Less brutal than the crimes that would have haunted
Each of them and undermined their cause.
Democracy requires compromise
And sometimes letting fools outvote the wise.
Yet some prefer the righteousness of wars.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at https://youtu.be/-kxMVUYKU2Q. For more Independence Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html .

In Politics Corruption Is the Norm

July 2, 2015

Dear Subscriber:

This week’s poem of the week is a poem about corruption for Independence Day (USA).

Yours,

Nick Gordon

In politics corruption is the norm,
Nor can one wield much power without its aid.
Democracy demands that minds be swayed,
Eviscerating efforts at reform.
Perhaps in tyrannies corruption’s worse,
Existing without recourse or restraint.
Not even when the ruler is a saint,
Devout and good, can one stamp out this curse.
Each country has some white knights still unstained,
Nor can idealists long remain in power.
Corruption simply waits until their hour
Erodes once their energy has waned.
Depending on its character and press,
A nation might be more corrupt or less,
Yet underneath the law the blight remains.

© by Nicholas Gordon

Watch me recite the poem on YouTube at https://youtu.be/TVoNe-fLyhE. For more Independence Day poems, go to http://www.poemsforfree.com/july4thpoems.html .